Like the Internet itself, the Spatial Web should be conceived
and cultivated as a community resource. It should not be controlled
or excessively characterized by any single institution, commercial
interest group, or national or regional government. The spatial
web must be thought of as one of humanity's critical infrastructure
and cultural resources. It should be the mutual intent of
its builders and users, the geospatial community, to protect
this nascent, unfolding infrastructure. The Spatial Web is
extraordinarily important, though few people think about it
now. It must become and remain an international public resource
that people can use for activities of all kinds: personal,
commercial, cultural, social and political.

Like the Web it is part of, the Spatial Web is self- organizing.
It grows through the diverse commercial and non-commercial
activities of countless people who use the Web to publish,
find, and process information about places, objects, people,
phenomena and events in "Earth space." But self-organizing
does not mean chaotic or out of control. The self-organization
of this technology- mediated social phenomenon is based on
precedents, inherent principles, and human intentions. Early
geoprocessing systems established the indisputable value of
geoprocessing in a wide range of human endeavors. Web-based
geoprocessing, as conceptualized in OGC's Critical Infrastructure
Protection Initiative and other initiatives, extends this
value. Working together in a global consensus process, we
can ensure that standards advancements will support and guide
a constructive unfolding.

It is important to understand that the Spatial Web is more
than spatial content and spatial applications on the Web,
integrated through spatial enhancements to the Web's standards
infrastructure. Thanks to the metadata expertise of producers
and users of spatial data, spatial content fits in nicely
as the Web comes to depend increasingly on text structured
in well-known schemas. And spatial processing applications
will be increasingly delivered as software that operates in
a Web Services environment. Some spatial content and applications
will be for sale, others will be free. Some will be delivered
via centrally managed systems, proprietary client-server application
architectures, and distributed services, others via decentralized
peer-to- peer architectures. This range of possibilities is
in the spirit of the Web. An expanding standards infrastructure makes it possible.

Yes, the Spatial Web will deliver content and applications,
but spatial content and applications are inherently different
from -- and more than -- video, sound, text, and image content
and applications. Spatial information, fully integrated into
our digital information environment, adds a missing conceptual
dimension in the formulation of problems and questions. It
becomes an essential element of workflow. It will touch most
Web-mediated human activities. It is impossible at this early
point in the "spatial enabling" of our digital information
environment to fully appreciate the degree to which the Spatial
Web is a necessary and vital part of that environment.

David Schell, President, OGC

GEOSPATIAL INFORMATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: HOW TO BUILD A FRAMEWORK FOR AFRICA AND BEYOND

The Geospatial Information for Sustainable Development Initial
Capability Pilot (GISDICP), from a practical point of view, sounds
easy: set up a few servers, a catalog to search for data, and make
software clients available to potential users of the data in Africa.
With the project demonstration just underway, it's clear that this
pilot opened up quite a few doors for those looking to find and use
data about Africa.

The good news about putting together a
framework for data sharing in Africa aimed at sustainable development
is that there is a surprising amount of data. Much of it is generated
and managed by practitioners in Africa. There is also a great deal of
information created and maintained by the international community
valuable for exploring sustainable development issues. The big
challenge, however, still remained: there was no easy way to find and
use these resources.

To find the data, OGC is using the
catalog interface and portal developed for the National Spatial Data
Infrastructure (NSDI) and now extended to the Global Spatial Data
Infrastructure. Currently hosted by the U.S. Geological Survey for the
demonstration, the portal will be transitioned to an African site this
fall. The catalog interface provides access to some 50 data sources,
and has a special feature. The search form has a button that searches
only "Data With Interactive Web Mapping Services (OGC)." That assures
data seekers that the data they find will be viewable using OGC
compliant clients. The catalog means that users can drill through
spatial data from all over the world, in all formats, to track down the
information needed about a specific area. The portal is available at: http://edcw2ks15.cr.usgs.gov/servlet/UNEPServlet?srp=2.

Using
the data is the other half of the story. The demonstration being shown
this week at The World Summit on Sustainable Development features
several different standards-based software clients that can view the
data. A simple HTML client provides basic viewing and rearranging of
data layers. A more advanced JavaScript applet, accessible directly
from clearinghouse results, provides more functionality, and a true
Java application even more. For those who need the most power, OGC
demonstrated GeoMedia as a "desktop" client to the WMS compliant
servers. GeoMedia and the IONIC web client application also provide
access to vector data from servers that support the OpenGIS® Web
Feature Service Interface Specification.

The goal of the GISD
pilot was to develop the necessary standards-based infrastructure,
illustrate how it could be used, and then leave it behind for regular
use. But the real benefits from the GISD framework are illustrated in
the tools to save money and time. First, the framework will cut down on
the time and effort needed to discover and access basic map data.
Second, the framework will enable research that was very difficult in
the past. One of the example scenarios posed this question: What if the
Tanzania Coastal Management Partnership was looking for data relating
to the country's coast? Researchers might first explore local data and
draw from a network of other partners working on similar issues in that
area of geography. The new framework helps to foster collaboration with
other resources. Using the clearinghouse, they might find that the U.S.
Forest Service had been studying deforestation in the mountains above,
which could lead to increased silt on the coast. Third, the framework
provides an unmatched resource for decision makers. Challenges like
planning responses to flooding in Mozambique or thinking through food
delivery locations should famine hit Zimbabwe may be some of the first
uses of the system.

OGC will be participating in two LBS events in the months of October and November 2002:

- As part of an Emerging Technology Summit Series, GITA and
OGC are sponsoring a Location-Based Services event to feature
the results of OGC's OpenLS Initiative. The event will be
held at the Sheraton Hotel in Reston, VA on October 24 and
25. Visit www.openls.org for details.

- OGC will also be participating in IIR's GIS in Telecoms
conference "Leveraging Geographic Information Systems
(GIS)." The conference will be held November 18-22 2002,
in Nice Acropolis, France. The conference will focus on ways
to enhance the telecommunications business's effectiveness
and efficiency - focusing on ocation Based Services (LBS)
and network planning & maintenance for fixed and mobile networks.
Visit http://www.iir-conferences.com/gis
for more details.

WHAT`S NEW ON THE OGC WEBSITE

The following products were added to the list of implementing products
http://www.opengeospatial.org/cgi-bin/implement.pl

OLS-1 continues on track toward October and November demonstrations.
The latest version of schemas has been finalized and Draft
Interoperability Program Reports (DIPRs) should be ready within
the next week or two for: Presentation, Location Utility,
Route Determination, Gateway, and Directory. These will be
briefed at the September OGC Technical Committee meeting.
Work on finalizing the demonstration scenarios and the Technology
Integration Experiments is underway.

- The Call for Participation/Request for Quotation for OGC
Critical Infrastructure Protection Initiative Phase 1 (CIPI-1)
is available at
http://ip.opengeospatial.org/cipi/documents.htm.
Responses to the CFP/RFQ are due no later than 5 pm EDT (2100
UTC) September 20, 2002. The initiative is expected to kick
off in mid-October with demonstration planned for March 2003.
Inquiries related to CIPI should be addressed to Mr. Terry
Idol, Chair, CIPI Advisory Committee, tidol [at] opengeospatial [dot] org.

- The OGC Interoperability Program released a Request for
Quotation for the Conformance and Interoperability Test and
Evaluation (CITE) Initiative on August 27, 2002. The CITE
Initiative has three focus areas: Planning and Feasibility
Study, Conformance Engine, Scripts and Guidelines Development,
and CITE Portal and Reference Implementations Development.
The CITE Initiative Planning and Feasibility Study will research
alternative models for conformance and interoperability testing
within the OGC. The Conformance Engine, Scripts and Guidelines
workgroup will develop a web-based conformance-testing engine,
test guidelines, and test scripts for testing and validation
of products with interfaces implementing OpenGIS Web Map Service
and Web Feature Service Specifications, the Geography Markup
Language (GML), and, potentially, other OpenGIS Implementation
Specifications. The conformance testing engine will be available
through the OGC-Network at the completion of the CITE Initiative.
The Portal and Reference Implementation workgroup will design
and implement a portal for access to CITE resources (test
guidelines, scripts, documentation, related links) and reference
implementations. RFQ responses will be due October 4, 2002.